October 18, 2006

Chancellor's Breakfast Guests to Hear About Current Trends in Media Ownership and Their Effects on News Content and Distribution

Does media ownership by few highly interconnected corporations impact the information people read in their newspapers or watch on television? How do such consolidations affect diversity of opinion and content, creativity, commercialization, and democratic access to the marketplace of ideas?

Guests at a Chancellor's Community Breakfast, hosted by UCSB Chancellor Henry Yang and the UCSB Affiliates, will hear communication professor Ronald E. Rice address these issues and more when he speaks on "Media Ownership: What Does it Mean and Why Should You Care?" at 7:30 a.m., Friday, Nov. 3. Rice holds the Arthur N. Rupe Chair in the Social Effects of Mass Communication in the UCSB Department of Communication and is co-director of the Carsey-Wolf Center for Film, Television and New Media at UCSB.

The breakfast will be held in the Cabrillo Pavilion Arts Center, 1118 East Cabrillo Boulevard, Santa Barbara. Tickets are $12 per person and payment must be made in advance. For reservations, contact the UCSB Office of Community Relations at (805) 893-4388.

The interaction of trends and developments in social values, political ideologies, media policies, economic conditions, globalization, media technologies and telecommunication networks has generated significant change in the nature of media industries, production content, distribution, exhibition, and use. Rice will discuss a variety of perspectives on changes in media ownership, concentration, and conglomeration, and speak to the consequences that follow. His presentation will highlight some of the central concepts, perspectives, evidence and arguments related to this debate.

Rice has conducted research and is published widely in the areas of communication science, public communication campaigns, and other topics. He is current president of the International Communication Association and recently spent several months as a Fulbright Fellow in Finland.

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